Anthem STR or Lyngdorf TDAI 2170?

I will add some info here that I think people will find useful.

I am back to comparing DSP because a too big for my room speaker is available for me to buy. For some unexplained reason I want to put this unsuitable speaker into my room instead of something smaller and more sane.

My room is treated and currently sounds very good with KEF LS50’s.

The 3 DSP engines I am considering are:

SPACE OPTIMIZATION - Linn Selekt DSM (heard it)
ROOM PERFECT - Lyngdorf 3400 (I heard the 2170)
ARC3 - Anthen STR pre (not heard)

I was first thinking of going with the Linn + Katalyst DAC upgrade because it sounded very good. However, after a lot of research I realized that ROON and Linn are strange bedfellows and not a good long term marriage. So the Linn is out.

Now it is down to the Lyngdorf and Anthem. The arguments presented here about the Lyngdorf sounding dry I agree with, but I am now looking at warm sound speaker which may compensate for that. However, saying this, I have demoed the 2170 with an external amp and the sound was awesome, not dry. The preamp in the Lyngdorf is very good. The unit is dead quiet as a Benchmark AHB2 amp, it sounds great at low volumes, the ROOM PERFECT will also work with an external amp. I confirmed the last point with Lyngdorf.

I do not know how important or audible the following feature is.

ICC (INTER-SAMPLE CLIPPING CORRECTION)

When music is being mastered, the level is often very high; upon analysis, you will often find several consecutive maximum samples, indicating something has been clipped away from the original signal. Audio that exceeds 0 dBFS (decibels relative to full scale) will sound very compressed because the headroom is nonexistent. This harsh sound is an unfortunate trend in the music industry and is typically referred to as “the loudness war.”

In order to compensate for this, we have created ICC (Inter-sample Clipping Correction). With ICC, the TDAI-2170 can automatically adjust up to 12dB headroom in the signal processing to avoid clipping of the signal. Through this you will enjoy the full dynamic range and a more natural sound.

I was not able to test ROOM PERFECT and the room I demoed was big so the effects of DSP would likely have been minimal. The Lyngdorf has a built-in Ethernet (RJ45) streamer, though Ethernet was not my preferred connection option. I will check out the EtherREGEN as a solution to lower RJ45 noise into the Lyngdorf if I go that way.

https://uptoneaudio.com/products/etherregen

The Anthem STR pre does not have a (maybe noisy) amp inside it’s chassis like the Lyngdorf. It also does not have the ICC feature of the Lyngdorf. However, it has defeatable ARC on the analogue inputs (I have a few). It has balance speaker settings which could be useful to me since I do not sit right in the middle of my speakers. The feature set on the Anthem seems better to me than the Lyngdorf. The sound of the Anthem pre has been described as a little bright in some reviews.

https://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/review/digital-reviews/spdif-dac-reviews/anthem-str-preamplifier-and-power-amplifier/

Which is not necessarily a bad thing for the warmish speaker I am considering.

The Anthem STR pre does not have a media player built-in like the Lyngdorf, I would use my computer as the medial player. I prefer this and would connect with a Fiber Optical cable to a Sonore Sgniture Rendu SE Optical.

https://www.ui.com/unifi-switching/unifi-switch-8-150w/ + http://sonore.us/systemoptique.html (the Signiture Rendu replaces the Optical in the diagram).

I will soon head out to demo the Anthem Integrated (without the amp) and the Lyngdorf 2170 integrated (without the amp) connected with an external Class AB amp. This will not answer the issue of which DSP is better but at least I can test the preamp and DAC on each. The room I will demo may not be ideally suited to show the benefits of DSP.

I hope I like the Anthem better because the feature set is perfect and not wasteful for my needs.

 Another extra data point for anyone interested and a important one for me since I plan on running very long internally balanced XLR interconnects between the preamp + amp. Not sure about the Anthem because they did not get back to me.

Hallo
yes – we can confirm that the balanced output of the TDAI-3400 are according to the AES48 standard !


Best regards
Flemming Smith
LYNGDORF AUDIO

@mike_in_nc The question I asked Anthem was whether they supported the Balanced AES48 standard.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/internally-balanced-cables-supporting-aes48-standard

I am assuming from your statement that the 25' XLR's you use sound good. 

BTW - what amp and XLR are you using with the Anthem STR preamp?

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/anthem-str-preamplifier-and-str-power-amplifier/

How appropriate that this review shows up

Just read a lot of words but not really saying much,

@mofojo Thanks for the feedback. I have demoed the Lyngdorf and I thought the preamp section was perfect for me. I was not a fan of the amp section so we tried an expensive external amp at the demo and it was lights out great. Now this may have been because the 2170’s amp was too low powered for the Paradigm Person 5F speakers I heard or maybe because the unit had not been played for a while.

I have gone back and forth between the Anthem STR pre and the Lyngdorf preamp section of the 3400 (I want balanced output with AES48 balanced standard support). The unheard STR pre makes more sense because I would not waste money on a unused amp section. However, recently I went back to reading several reviews of the 2170 and they took me back to the demo I had 11 months ago, confirming the great things I remember hearing.

The dealer that has the Lyngdorf also has the Anthem STR integrated, so I will demo that units preamp section out to an external amp to mimic the STR pre. However, my feeling is that the Lyngdorf will win out because of likely a better DAC and the phenomenally quite nature of the unit. I will give this dealer my business for the preamp even if it is not the lowest price.

BTW - The room I will use the DSP is this one, https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/7605
The speakers I will likely buy are this one, https://www.musicdirect.com/speakers/Yamaha-NS-5000-3-Way-Bookshelf-Speakers

So if you have any thoughts on the Lyngdorf taming these savage beasts for my room, please share.

@mofojo  I emailed Lyngdorf and asked whether the system is diminished, especially Room Perfect, if I used an external amp.

Me: "I am interested in the 3400 integrated. I would like to clarify if ROOM PERFECT processing can be outputted via the analogue XLR outputs into an external amp. I know that non-ROOM PERFECT output can be sent to an external amp. My confusion arises from comment I heard that said that the 3400's amplification is essential for ROOM PERFECT to work. That is an external amp cannot do ROOM PERFECT."

Lyngdorf:

Hallo
RoomPerfect will function no matter how you output the signal - it just requires full-range stereo setup to work

so - no problem to use external amplifier(s) !

Best regards
Flemming Smith
LYNGDORF AUDIO

Thanks for the idea of keeping the unit on. I will definitively ask them to do so before the demo. I would love it, for the short term, if I could just use the 3400 and my analogue sources without an external amp. The Yamaha may also play better with the Lyngdorf amp versus the Persona 5F (which sounded great with the config and big demo room I described above). 

BTW - I am looking forward to try the EtherREGEN if I get the 3400 for streaming vs getting a USB D-2-D streaming solution.

@mike_in_nc  Thanks great post. Your comment about Computing at 192 kHz is interesting since the Macintosh version of RoomPerfect on the men220 is supposed to be at 96 kHz and the Lyngdorf 3400 at 192 kHz. Some comments I read on A'gon about both units state that the Lyngdorf 3400's version of Room Perfect sounds better.

I was speaking with an experienced audiophile who has been playing with the Anthem STR preamp for the last few months. I asked if he had an opinion on the Lyngdorf 3400, Anthem STR pre, and the Linn Selekt DSM with respect to room correction. His answer surprised me in that he told me to have a look at the Dirac system found in miniDSP SHD.

Don’t forget to include the miniDSP SHD preamp. It does essentially everything the STR does with Dirac Live (which I use) instead of ARC.

I am going to take some time to check this out since in a perfect world I would buy a preamp to match the amp I want to get. The following product seems to fit that purpose,

https://www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-series/product-line-summary

Another DSP system that came to my attention as I was looking into the miniDSP is some software from Europe called Acourate, https://www.audiovero.de/en/acourate.php

Supposed to be extremely powerful but maybe difficult to use.

@mike_in_nc Thanks for the XLR info. I am definitely going to go with something like you use and have a very long interconnect to hide my components far from the speakers.

@keoliphant I did not have a good demo with the Yamaha because the room was a nightmare. However, I heard enough to make it the speaker I will get. I wrote something about the demo experience on the NS5000 thread I started in 2017.

@gosta What you say does not match what I heard from a dealer regarding ARC and Room Perfect. However, I think I your observations are likely to have a better chance of being more accurate. Thanks for the feedback.